Because the uncultured French only read on average 1.7 books a year (that includes rugbymen calendars) and in a never ending effort to bring this blog to another level with regards to all things cultural here is today's literary pause.

A funeral passes through the market. Black coffin -- Arabic inscriptions in filigreed silver -- carried by four pallbearers. Procession of mourners singing the funeral song... Clem and Jody fall in beside them carrying coffin, the corpse of a hog bursts out of it.... The hog is dressed in a jellaba, a keif pipe juts from its mouth, one hoof holds a packet of feelthy pictures, a mezuzzoth hangs about its neck.... Inscribed on the coffin: 'This was the noblest Arab of them all'.Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs

Today's literary pause is dedicated to the guy that circulates lists of real and imagined Jews to advance his cause Tariq Ramadan the tanned Le Pen who is currently the darling of the French Left.

UPDATE: Lightspeed! This post was up not 15 minutes when I received the French translation as it appears in the Gallimard edition of the novel. Translation (to the right) by Eric Kahane. Thanks to Nicolas from 'maje nikko' for sending it along.